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Hi there! For a few months I will be writing you from Bucharest, the capital of Romania, a city with glorious and hmm… inglorious (communist) past. A city that has been home to more than 2 million of people of different ethno-cultural backgrounds and that in the past – 19th and beginning of 20th century – was considered the Paris of the East. Yet now, I consider it as the New York of East – without trying to much to orientalise it, the city is now the magnet that attracts western capital on one hand, but on the other, a city of quite controversial social problems from low salaries for local workers to homeless people, forced evictions of Roma to mysterious disappearance of dogs from the streets that were for many years the terror of tourists (I was bitten by one 9 years ago, when I was here on a study exchange). However, hidden by the grey and dirty city facades, Bucharest is home to several gems of creative practices from the past and present – art venues, theatre, film and concert performances, wonderful museums and historical sites and many more.

Lovely, urban and modern coffees in the old city center.

A presentation of accessibility of photographs made by MNAC and other associations at the Romanian Design Week.

An interactive performance on forced evictions of Roma, made by Roma women from Rahova quarter.

The beautiful Cişmigiu Park.

The Primaverii Palace, the home of Ceauşescu family with one of the peacocks.

The beautiful Romanian Atheneum.

An interesting exhibition on living in the XXI century in Bucharest – Muzeul 3017.

The biggest market in Bucharest, Obor.

Revolution Square, where the revolution of 1989 begun.

A mixture of religious monuments and communist blocks of flat is a common view in Bucharest.

Sunset on the Uniri Square with the Parliament Palace in the back.

Having lunch in a cosy bistrot is a must in Bucarest.

So, what I am actually doing here, to attract your attention on theaMUSE(U)Ment blog? By the end of last year, I was awarded with an international research residence in 2017 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest for 6 months. My proposal to the museum was a participatory project with different groups of people, especially the ones from the margins, and considered vulnerable. I was not sure they will accept me – not being an artist, nor an art historian or theoretician – but a cultural anthropologists and ethnologistand a museum curator and a passionate photographer. However, a museum of contemporary art (as any other museum) needs a mixture of different profiles and intellectual backgrounds, to broaden the margins of knowledge and maybe to have a different view on its work and especially when we are working on the collaboration with the public. I came at the right time: the museum is in vivid flow of changes from the physical space to the content. What a great adventure and how many challenges are therefore in front of me!

The Parliament Palace from Izvor park. The entrance is from the other side of the park on Calea 13 Septembrie.

Follow the signs.

An insight into the exhibition ‘The Ephemerist. A Mihai Olos retrospective.’

The entrance to the museum.

The entrance to the museum.

The National Museum of Contemporary Art (Muzeul Național de Artă Contemporană) was established in 2004 in the Parliament Palace or previously calleed the People’s House, the last of the foolish projects of the communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu. The palace is one of the largest buildings in the world, but its history is a bit tormenting – it costed the leaderhead at least. After the earthquake in 1977, Ceauşescu wanted to reorganise and rebuild the area. The story is well known: a wast part of the city was demolished and more than 40.000 people were allocated. However, the building site gave work to many people, but is said that the costs were so high that the building impoverished the state and caused the political turmoil – the revolution of 1989. After the revolution, the building was still unfinished and under debate: either to demolish it or to transform it in something else. Today the building hosts the Parliament, the Senat, the Chamber of Deputies… and as I have already said, from 2004, the National Museum of Contemporary Art.

Photo: Iosif Király. (Photo from the MNAC web page.)

The establishment of the museum in the building that carries such a heavy historical symbolism related to vague and controversial memories and emotions, was debated since the beginning, starting with an international conference and exhibition Romanian Artists (and not only) love Ceauşescu’s Palace?! (curated by Ruxandra Balaci). One of the convenors, Ami Barak wrote in the museum/exhibition catalogue:

»When I heard the news of that quasi-Freudian choice of hosting the Museum of Contemporary Art inside the heinous People’s Palace, the fruit and symbol of former dictator Ceauşescu’s megalomania and crazy will for destructive and criminal grandeur, I said to myself, as did others, that instead of a beginning, this was rather a burial, an absolute closure enacted by the authorities. That it was, undoubtedly, a punishment and a buffling form of contempt towards contemporary art in general and Romanian creation in particular. While elsewhere the museums of contemporary art make room for daring architectural projects and devise modes of display that signal new trends in architecture, Romania has chosen a symbol of the past, with all the consequences for the collective unconscious that can be imagined. And that it was quite likely that this would contribute to the usual lack of understanding manifested by audiences anywhere towards today’s art, which the museum is called to protect and promote.” (Ami Barak, MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art, catalogue, 2004: 49)

The burdens of the past are still vivid in some sense, and can be described as a mental barrier between the museum and the community. The barrier is also materialized in the street and the wall surrounding the building with police controls that add a heavy notion of social power and inaccessibility. That is a real challenge for a project based on participation and accessibility…

However, the museum staff is full of fresh ideas that are reinforced by five floors of exposition space filled with a good program. On 27th April 2017, the grand Spring opening with five excellent exhibitions presenting mostly Romanian artists and also in a dialogue with the international art space (the program) was seen by quite a good number of visitors, looked like more than thousand. And one month later, on the 20th May, the Romanian Night of Museums, a broad number of people was still discovering the contemporary art in the museum half an hour before closing at 2 in the morning. The museum has also a good accompanying program with theater performances, talk shows like Artist Talk, workshops for children and a new program with music-based events is going to follow in the summer months.

So, what else can be add to the already long introductory presentation? Maybe, that I am happy to be here, to gain more knowledge and experiences in the field of the contemporary art museums and of course to add some other, different perspectives on museum work, especially in the filed of collaboration with the public.

Michel Lee is curator for China and Korea at the Swedish National Museums of World Culture. Before its last reorganization, he was the director of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, which is one of the museums – in addition to the Ethnographic Museum and Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, and Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg – in the consortium of the National Museums of World Culture.

Michel Lee received his Bachelor of Arts in anthropology at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. After his studies, he worked for the Smithsonian Institution’s Anthropology department at the National Museum of Natural History. Then he moved to London, where he earned his Master of Arts in the history of art and archeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Before moving to Sweden, he also worked as the director and curator of the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath, U.K.

Michel and I met in May 2016 in Marseille, France, within the SWICH project. On that occasion, I presented my collaboration with Roma women within the Accessibility project in the Slovene Ethnographic Museum. Since we share an interest in the Roma community, we had a lively conversation about our experiences and perspectives regarding collaboration with Roma within museums. Eventually, it brought up a lot of other common interests – identity politics, diaspora communities, and the role of museums in contemporary society. From then on, our discussions became more and more vibrant, so we decided to present some of the topics in the form of an interview. We spoke at the end of February 2017 in Stockholm. Of course, I started the conversation with a question about the SWICH project.

Tina: Let’s start with the SWICH project! It aims to rethink the role of ethnographic museums today, as well as develop innovative and more inclusive ethnographic museum practice. The National Museums of World Culture, where you work, is one of the SWICH partners. How do you see the role of Swedish partner in the project?

Michel: I think one of our main contributions to the SWICH project is sharing experiences from our Swedish perspective. The SWICH project is a great resource for European museums to keep each other up-to-date with current museum practice within Europe, especially ethnographic museums. Through different exchanges and different types of dialogue, it makes the museums stronger by allowing them to pick and choose what methods work for their specific countries, their specific contexts. Maybe not everything we hear from other participants works, for instance, within Sweden. However, it is good to hear what other museums are doing, what they see as best practice and how we can apply some of these very good practices to our museums. As a curator, it is a way for me to be exposed to different practices and different ways of working with collections and communities.

Tina: Within SWICH, both National Museums of World Culture and Slovene Ethnographic Museum work on two themes: creative dialogue and digital futures. Within the former theme, you also collaborated with an artist, and now you are working on experimental exhibition. What are your experiences?

Michel: To be honest, it was my colleague that worked on our artist-in-residence exhibition, so I’m not the best person to talk to about the process of working with that artist. But just as a general observation about some of the artist-in-residence projects I have seen in ethnographic museums, I think that most people who visit ethnographic museums do not necessarily go for the same reasons and digest information in the same ways as people who visit art museums. The messages from some artists-in-residence are often communicated in a more abstract way that art museum audiences expect, but not always for an ethnographic museum visitor. Visitors may not take the time to switch mind sets, and walk away from the display if the message is presented in too abstract a way.

Image is from the public workshop ’You are here, because they were there’ led by SWICH Artist in residence Jacqueline Hoang Nguyen and held at Museum of Ethnography, 17 October 2015. Photographer: Tony Sandin.

With regard to the experimental exhibition, I am very much involved with that. In many ways, this project has been liberating in that there are few preconceived ideas of what the final product should be or how we get to the final product. We’re working with a school in what is perhaps Sweden’s most culturally diverse city. We will have workshops with the students to help prepare them to talk about their identities through objects. They play a key role in creating the exhibition and the exhibition will stay in their school for a period of time. This is the first exhibition that I have worked on where I have only minimal control of the presentation of the objects. Yes, I will frame the exhibition with things like an introduction text, have the responsibility of editing, and we will make sure that the students have accurate information about the objects, so that their decisions to work with particular objects are based on knowledge and facts. But it will be the students that have the voice when it comes to their relationship to the objects or what they stand for. With this type of method, the process of working with the students, through our education officers, becomes just as important as the final product. We will also be working with the elderly in this project in a way that encourages intergenerational dialogue. I feel like this exhibition process has, so far, been a great experience for me working with objects in a different way.

Tina: Decolonization, globalization and migration – those are three crucial processes that are profoundly changing European society in the last few decades. How do you feel they have affected ethnographic museums as cultural institutions as well as ethnographic museum practices?

Michel: Ethnographic museums were originally showcases of other cultures but almost within a vacuum. It was easy to get the sense that these cultures existed within themselves, almost as if there could be pure cultures. Now, with more issues about migration and decolonization being brought to the forefront of the work of many museums, pushing museums to become more inclusive of minority and suppressed voices, this has helped museums to acknowledge that no culture, no groups of people have ever been that isolated. There has always been communication, influences, movements of people. Maybe it did not happen as fast or on as large a scale as today, but certainly there was movement, there was communication, there was sharing of information, technology and so forth. I think the current emphasis in some museums on themed exhibitions, rather than culturally or geographically-based exhibitions, may be a result of this acknowledgement. However, I feel that it is important to not completely abandon culturally-based and geographically-based exhibitions, because they still help us to understand where we came from and how we got to be the way we are today. We just need to understand and acknowledge the complexities and historical contexts when we talk about cultures within specific geographic locations.

Tina: Museums respond to today’s demands with various practices: they digitize and make all the content available on-line, they invite artists to bring a different perspective into museum practice or make creative interpretation of the museum content, some try to develop collaboration with source communities and create exhibitions together with them. In your opinion, which museum practice will define the future of ethnographic museums?

Michel: I think ethnographic museums in the future will be much more conscious of the communities out there that have a stake in their collections. And it will not be only about the collections, it will also be about the communities, whether we’re talking about source or diaspora communities. I see a lot more of work with communities in terms of how to interpret objects and what should be represented for different peoples, different groups.

Tina: Dr. Vázquez, whom we listened to in Leiden in November 2016, made a distinction between ‘colonization’ and ‘coloniality’. Although colonization has technically ended for much of the world, coloniality is still present today. The term refers to residual effects of colonization such as racism, discrimination, and the dominance of the Western perspective. How can ethnographic museums, which are institutions embedded in colonial history, help to dismantle coloniality and include also non-Western perspectives into their presentations?

Michel: I think including voices, or points of views, from communities that are represented in the museum, but whose perspectives are not always represented, is a very good way to help dismantle coloniality. It is very important to acknowledge that there are different points of views and to bring them out, but I do not think one point of view should necessarily take over another. I feel it is important that the different points of views that are presented are based on fact or knowledge, or at least to contextualize them if they are not. I don’t think we can have a good understanding of a conflict or situation if we only know one point of view. To know the different points of views is to have a more holistic understanding of a certain situation. Disciplines, such as history, art history, anthropology, look at their histories – they come of the point of view of the dominant society. But, does that mean that it is wrong, bad or shameful? I think not necessarily. Of course museums should not promote racism, discrimination, or domination, and museums need to be sensitive of these issues when creating exhibitions. But just because there is a dominant point of view does not necessarily mean it automatically falls into one of those categories. Again, I think opening up museum interpretation to more voices is a good thing. Recognizing and understanding that there are different points of views will give one a better understanding of a situation. Some points of views may contradict each other and show where conflicts arise, exposing the complexities of life! But different points of views can also be complementary and give a fuller, more nuanced understanding of a situation.

Tina: How can we achieve this within museums?

Michel: It is very common now to work with diaspora groups, with source communities. European museums have traditionally had a foundation within a Western, academic perspective. Perhaps we do not need to, as they say, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe we can still acknowledge a museum point of view, perhaps some might call this the traditional academic voice. This voice may or may not contradict a community’s perspective. But by working openly and respectfully with source and diaspora communities, different voices will naturally come out. Museums should be very transparent about the process of working with communities. For instance: what is the voice of the curator, why do they have this perspective, what is the voice of the community and why do they have a certain perspective.

As Europe becomes a more diverse society with each generation, it is also natural that people working within many European museums reflect this trend. Museum workforces in Europe are probably more diverse than they have ever been. I sometimes feel that discussions about representation within museums have the point of view that the museum is one player and the “community” is another player. Sometimes, there are already voices from within the community working within the museum. We should not take for granted that change will automatically happen. People need to work towards change. But having a diverse workforce will help museums to be more inclusive of other voices and help with the process of dismantling coloniality.

Tina: Can you share your good practice of collaborating with communities?

Michel: I quite often work with communities in our Sculpture Hall. Within the Swedish context, there is often reluctance to talk about religion. But I feel that when working with objects which were created as religious objects, we must understand at least the basics of the religion in order to understand how to read and understand the objects – sculptures in this case – on a deeper level. We have invited Buddhist monks and nuns from different traditions to perform ceremonies with and around the sculptures in the Sculpture Hall. This way, the visitor will have a better understanding that these sculptures are not just objects. They have a ceremonial and social context. They are meant to be seen with offerings. Those that believe in the religion interact with the statues. These are things a visitor usually does not see within a museum setting. We have also had monks create butter sculptures as offerings to specific statues, or the deities that are represented by the statues. This was also a way to present a type of material culture that is not preserved within museum collections due to the ephemeral nature of the material. Of course, the conservator is also a very important part of these projects to help negotiate what can be done around the objects. We do our best to accommodate the needs of the devout, while still making sure that the objects are well cared for from a conservation point of view.

The consecration ceremony for butter sculptures made by the monks of Drikung Monastery, Ladakh, India. Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 2016

Whenever I work with communities, self-representation is very important. A good dialogue is important to have to make sure that both parties know what each other’s expectations are. From the museum side, the main requirement when accepting this type of cooperation is inclusivity. The ceremony or event must not exclude anyone. We make sure the communities we work with understand that the museum is a public place, and most people attending the event will probably not be of the religion and will be there mainly to observe. I have never had an experience with a group that does not accept this. And of course, there could be people attending who are of that faith, and they are welcome to experience the event as a religious event. Although religion can sometimes be a touchy subject in Sweden, these Buddhist events are some of our most well-attended events. I think the main reason for this is because Buddhism is seen in quite a positive light in Western popular imagination.

Tina: For the conclusion – what will be your next project?

Michel: I’m currently working on a project to completely update the information and photography for our Korea collection in our electronic database. As with so many museums in Europe now, accessibility is a big topic in our organization. Working with the digital allows us to reach audiences around the world. The information will also be available in Korean language, so researchers in Korea will also have access.

Christmas should be celebrated on 25 May instead of December. At least that is what members of the Kimbanguist Church believe – and also practice. Kimbanguism is a religious movement founded by Simon Kimbangu in the Belgian Congo in 1921. With several millions of believers, Kimbanguist Church is considered a branch of Christianity.

Simon Kimbangu interpreted the Bible and prophesied the end of the colonial order. Belgian colonialists accused him of encouraging racism, uncivil behavior and offending public order, as well as condemned him to death. However, he stayed in captivity until his death in 1951. Despite attempts to suppress the movement, Kimbanguism has survived. Kimbanguist Church fights against the polygamy, magic and witchcraft, as well as use of violence, alcohol and tobacco.

Kimbanguist Church is merely one of the consequences of the encounter of the Kongo peoples of the Central Africa with Christian religion. Small, but very exciting temporary exhibition at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, entitled ‘From the Jordan River to the Congo River: Art and Christianity in Central Africa’, tells us about the influences of 500 years of Christianization of the vast territory of today’s Gabon, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo. We can see how Christian iconography was interpreted and used by Kongo rulers and artists – many of the objects connected Christian imagery with the power. For instance, cruciform objects were used to legitimize the power of leaders, in judicial decisions, rainmaking, and as talismans to assure successful activities – traveling, hunting, and conception.

A copy of Santo Agostinho Padrão, stone pillar, erected by Portuguese Diogo Cão in 1482, when he reached the Kingdom of Congo.

Curator defines three evangelisation periods of Central Africa:

between the 15th and the 18th centuries: the Portuguese reached the Kingdom of Kongo in 1482 and remained the main European population (also the Dutch and the French occupied certain areas) in the area until the beginning of colonial era. The main reason for contacts was trading however, Portugal also supported different missionary orders to spread Christianity. The conversion of the Kingdom of Congo happened quickly – one of the reasons is that political leadership decided to embrace the new religion, as they saw it as a source of their greater political power. Conversion was mainly a ruling classes’ strategy to serve their political and religious ends, therefore it never eradicated local beliefs.

Nkangi kiditu, a crucifix of the Congo chief, with secondary figures with joined hands. Crucifixes legitimized the power of their owners. 17th century.

In the early years of the 18th century, a young Kongo princess named Kimpa Vita promoted a new form of Christianity. She began a religious and political movement, later called Antonianism. Sculptures like this one complement the role of Kimpa Vita in promoting the reunification and strengthening of the Kongo. 20th century.

colonial era: it reached its climax with the Berlin conference (1884-1885) when different Kongo groups became dependent on the Portuguese and French powers as well as on the Belgian crown. There are many objects on the exhibition showing Catholic-inspired art from this period. When the second period of evangelism began, of course in an alliance with the colonial order, there were more material, formal and linguistic than spiritual traces left after the initial wave of Christianity.

Female necklace with crucifix, first quarter of the 20th century.

Ntadi, funerary statue, with a cross around its neck and a hat with leopard claws, an attribute of a Chief. 20th century.

from 1960, 1970 onwards: proliferation of new, so-called ‘revival churches’, was encouraged by the acute economic and political crisis in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. These churches seek to break with the past and tradition. One of them is Kimbanguist Church, introduced at the beginning of this text. There is one room of the exhibition dedicated only to this period which shows also Pierre Bodo’s artistic interpretations.

Congolese painter Pierre Bodo (1953-2015), La Possession Demoniaque, 2000. Bodo served as a pastor of a Pentecostal church, which influenced his iconographic choices.

From my perspective, curator of the exhibition, Julien Volper, specialist curator for the Sub-Saharan Africa at the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, very well emphasized the crucial point of the exhibition – the adaptation of Christianity to the particularities of local cultures.

Christian iconography and practices were not adapted unaltered. On the one hand, exhibited objects reflect the reinterpretation of Christian iconography by the local artists, and on the other, Catholic practices were transformed into a religious syncretism. As it is written on the museum’s website, we can understand Congolese cultural interpretation of Catholicism as “one of the symbols of emancipation in the face of European domination”.

With revealing the aspects of agency of Kongo peoples when encountered with Christian religion, the curator enables us to question imperialist and racist elements of an evolutionary discourse, or of the so-called narrative of progress, which is still present nowadays. From my perspective, this exhibition succeeds in presenting how contacts between different religious as well as cultural concepts can result in something new, stimulate creativity and thus provide new perspectives on the world we live in. This is an extremely important message for today. Fortunately, for those of us, who do not understand French – only the main panels are translated in English – there is an exhibition catalogue available in both, French and English languages.

Obviously, the exhibition also inspired a visitor, who drew this wonderful picture in a guest book.

Strolling through the exhibition, I was reminded of the very special experience I had while traveling / volunteering in Ghana with a very good friend of mine. We accidentally came across Christian church in the city of Tamale, and were invited to join the Holy Mass. They welcomed us very kindly, and we were asked to introduce ourselves. Afterwards we were invited to actively participate at the Mass. Their Holy Book surprised me the most – I am familiar with biblical parables quite well, however this book was very different. Stories were categorized within several chapters, namely health, family, love, strength, temptation … depending on their message. I tried to read a chapter about temptation, but my neighbor never stopped to show me the right page we were reading at the moment …

On the way from work, I stop by at the market. I crave some bananas and I need a few lemons. Before weighing them and getting a price, I neatly place them in those see-through plastic bags. Quickly, I also grab my favourite yogurt in a cup and a bottle of water, since I forgot to drink all day. The last thing I need is a piece of cheese, packed in a stretch foil. There, I’m done. Since I’m always in a hurry, I rush to the self-cashier’s and stuff my purchase in their handy plastic bags. Once I’m home, placing my yield on the spots, where it belongs, I realize, I made it home with three new plastic bags, plastic cup and a bottle, and a plastic foil. Ok, it’s not that bad. It gets worse though, when thinking this happens nearly every second day. And not only in my case. However, what has this to do with museums? More than we think.

A mass of plastic waste, which every 20 – 30 secunds ends up in the sea.

Out to Sea? Is an exhibition telling a story about a phenomenal material – plastic. Plastic is amazing, since it can have any characteristic we want. It is cheap, light… practically it is perfect. It even contributed to the development of the daily appliances. Plastic is so to say almighty. Moreover, it is very badly degradable. It proves its almightiness also in the sea, the final station where it ends up in large masses every 20 to 30 seconds.

To decompose, plastic needs UV rays.

Would you like to take a look of what size of a mass am I talking about? Take a walk through the travelling exhibition, currently hosted in The Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO). Already during the visit, your brain will start to ruminate on this. Exhibition from The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, which travels around the world in environment-friendly way, is set to be easily understood and introduced to the children. The visitor is introduced to an afterlife of plastic, once it served its purpose for the humans. The exhibition plays with a thought, what archaeological diggings will our successors find. It offers an insight on how much plastic waste we produce; it illustrates the different ways of recycling. It enables us to discover on our own, how much and how small plastic bits are hiding in the sea sand. It serves us with facts about the plastic and visual enrichments, among which also a mockumentary – depicting a plastic bag’s struggle to reach the bags’ afterlife paradise – gets its place.

Poisons, hiding in the plastic bits, are accumulated in the organism’s fat tissue, rounding the food chain with us: the fish eats the bits, and we eat the fish. And the poisons along with the fish.

Despite seeing this exhibition already in Graz in 2015, which stunned me already then, it took MAO’s localized Slovene plastic waste input to really strike me. Besides, being greeted by a monthly catch of domestic plastic waste, collected by the museum staff, when entering the exhibition also did its part on my emotional involvement. Most visible and unique host’s input on the travelling exhibition is an analysis of the materials of the plastic national heritage, kept in MAO’s collections. Through that, they expose the overlooked fact; there is more than just one type of plastic, as it is often perceived. Moreover, the restorers being unable to define the types with their bare eyes, this everyday material becomes unfamiliar, diverse and puzzling. What type of plastic we have is important not only for its decomposition – since not all types last the same amount of time – but also for its storage. The last is clearly stressed in MAO’s input at the exhibition with an analyse of selected design objects, opening an often overlooked chapter of object-keeping in museums, while warning about the issue; possibly causing a few grey hair to restorers and keepers of museum collections.

An exhibition that gives you chills and convinces you to make a fresh new year’s resolution.

The exhibition does not pretend to offer any aesthetic pleasures to the visitors. It plays a role of something greater. It reminds us of what we do on regular basis, and how effective we do it. If museums are supposed to take on a more active role in the society, influencing and co-shaping the society, this exhibition is a way, how this can be done. This is an exhibition not only all the children and schools need to see, but also we – adults should not miss out on it.

Oh, Vienna and museums – it’s always a pleasure! Actually, I like my Vienna with sequences of museum and coffee stops. In addition, eventually a lunch and dinner, of course. However, really – squeezing two to three museums and two coffee stops in a day in Vienna is a perfect combination, which makes sure that I don’t gorge myself with culture (or coffee).

This time around, when the streets were reflecting month away holiday spirit, I decided to fully ignore the too early Christmassy atmosphere and stroll around the museums I’ve placed on my list To visit. I must say, I was really impressed by The Museum of Applied Arts – MAK. It is easy to reach, and it has that welcoming atmosphere, even though the staff you meet is in general at the reception desk and later on the guardians of the artefacts. However, the additional – let’s say – contemporary participatory and educational visitor inputs on the exhibitions with many various sofas in the ground floor and tables, where some visitors calmly had their snack/talk brakes made sure I felt fully relaxed and nice. Despite having a collection of Vienna’s pedigree furniture and on first glimpse boring artefacts in the ground floor, they’ve managed to cut the haughty spirit of the exhibits through adding the elements of surprise. When you already expect you will find a row of important chairs from their furniture collection in the next room, they pleasantly surprise you with an installation of those important chairs presented through their shadows – instantly creating a new experience, freed from the possible superiority. In addition, the art nuoveau Wien 1900 in the first floor is remarkable, a bit old-fashioned, but you know – there is something about that period, and they have Klimt’s artworks as well. And who doesn’t like Klimt?

Vienna 1900 with more contemporary artistic addition on the top.

My favourite though, was the MAK Design Labor, where I zigzagged around, feasting my eyes on incredible contemporary kitchen ideas (next to the Mother of the Fitted Kitchen from 1926), incredible chair collection, a room of patterns, which are also digitalized and ready for you to use, Helmut Lang room and a room, where the question of sustainability is in the forefront. I really appreciated, how they intertwined the old and the new, enabling the self-explanatory environment without the unnecessary elaborations, and very subtle artistic inputs on the topics, such as the kitchen, the table setting and eating… Foremost, I liked the solution on reducing the text on the exhibitions, yet enabling the curious ones to learn more. They took the simple and effective way, by inserting the ‘text guides corners’ just before every exhibition topic began, and by exposing the most important points or questions for the visitors to chew on, placed on the walls in German and English.

Their decision on the temporary exhibitions was also an interesting one, displaying the Shunga, erotic art from Japan and 100 BEST POSTERS 15. Germany Austria Switzerland. Both were great for creating a cut between the floors and various topics. There is many more on display, always playing with the past and the present, or creating a special environment and exhibition space, as they did in the exhibition on china, placing it in the enormous wooden-glass see-through crates with handwritten object presentations. As I said, they know how to refresh and spice things up and they have a lovely museum shop with a café just next to the reception.